


lighting flamethrowers against the dark

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: all we have is each other (one foot in front of the other) [3]
Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers Dino Charge, Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Women, BELLA BECOMES A POWER RANGER, Bella has become the great flannel bi we all knew she was, Bella is a BAMF and should be respected as such, Bella is bi, Bella is the Silver Ranger, F/F, Female Friendship, Feminist Themes, Implied/Referenced Abuse, POV Bella, Recovery, Twilight Spitefic, Women Being Awesome, Women In Power, bi Chase, can most def be read as a standalone, gay Ivan, gay ace Riley, lesbian Kendall, past abusive relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-15 11:24:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16932384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: When Edward leaves, Bella doesn't collapse into nothingness. She doesn't fall apart, doesn't go silent for months.Instead, she blisters. She festers, anger equaling the sadness in her veins.She loves him and she hates him. He is her addiction, but her withdrawal doesn't make her collapse inward- it makes her explode.Bella leaves Forks and heads to California, settling with Angela in that apartment in Amber Beach.For a year she lives and learns to breathe on her own. She learns not to look over her shoulders, not to measure everything she does next to impossible standards. She learns to love the parts of herself that she used to hate, used to see as too imperfectly human to love.She learns to live, and maybe she's fucking things up a bit along the way but that's...okay. And she constantly reminds herself to accept that.-Then, a year after she started living here, the monster attacks start and the Power Rangers rise.(Bella Swan leaves Forks, becomes a Power Ranger, learns to heal, and falls in love with a woman. Not necessarily in that order.)





	lighting flamethrowers against the dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SearchingforSerendipity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the color and consistency of glass](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7601710) by [SearchingforSerendipity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity). 
  * Inspired by [all the lambs grow fangs and hunt down the lions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6303427) by [SearchingforSerendipity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity). 



> Title is from Terry Pratchett's quote "Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness."
> 
> This is directly inspired by SearchingForSerendipity's works on Twilight. Not sure if they like Power Rangers, but I am gifting it to them because this story never would have been written otherwise.
> 
> Also, "Sweet Nothing" by Florence + the Machine is pretty much the anthem for this story.
> 
>  
> 
> All quotes within this story will come from Richard Siken poems.

_You can’t get out of this one, Henry, you can’t get it out of me, and with this bullet_

_lodged in my chest, covered with your name, I will turn myself into a gun, because_

_it’s all I have,_

_because I’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. I’ll be your_

_slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this_

_bullet inside me_

_‘cause I couldn’t make you love me and I’m tired of pulling your teeth._

 

When Edward leaves, Bella doesn't collapse into nothingness. She doesn't fall apart, doesn't go silent for months.

Instead, she blisters. She festers, anger equaling the sadness in her veins.

She loves him and she hates him. He is her addiction, but her withdrawal doesn't make her collapse inward- it makes her explode.

(A few weeks after the Cullens leave, a random patrol car will happen upon the Cullens' house to find it trashed, mirrors shattered everywhere and everything make of glass broken. The piano strings will be shredded, the white couch cushions ripped, the priceless paintings covered in black ink.

Charlie will look at his daughter, at the way her fingertips have been scratched raw and red, at the way she's stopped crying now that the Cullen boy is gone, and he won't pursue the very few leads that come through the precinct. Some crimes can go unpunished.)

-

Bella doesn't want to stay in a place that reminds her of him. She may have made it through the withdrawal stage of addiction, but she's afraid of relapse.

When Bella mentions wanting to get away from Forks, Angela takes one look at her and says, “I’ve got a sofa in California practically screaming your name. You get a job in Amber Beach, you can move in with me.”

Bella hadn't applied to any colleges, set on spending a lifetime with Edward. Angela had, though, and gotten into a college outside of Amber Beach, California.

Bella takes one look back at the town around her, at the school she doesn’t care about and the bed she can barely bear to sleep in and the abandoned house in the countryside that only holds empty picture frames and pristine white furniture and shattered glass.

"Lemme tell my dad," Bella says, smiling for the first time since Edward left.

-

Bella leaves Forks and heads to California, settling with Angela in that apartment in Amber Beach. She gets a job working at a cafe down the street from the Amber Beach Dinosaur Museum, learns how to take satisfaction in blistered fingertips and backaches and tried feet- everything that she can latch on to make herself feel human.

For a year she lives and learns to breathe on her own. She learns not to look over her shoulders, not to measure everything she does next to impossible standards. She learns to love the parts of herself that she used to hate, used to see as too imperfectly human to love.

(She's not always great at it, but she  _is_ trying. And she tries to convince herself that it's enough.)

She starts taking self-defense classes on the weekends. Lily's classes are nothing compared to the therapy she knows she should probably be getting, but they help at least a little. They ease the fear of James and Victoria and even Edward himself coming back for her.

She learns to live, and maybe she's fucking things up a bit along the way but that's...okay. And she constantly reminds herself to accept that.

-

Then, a year after she started living here, the monster attacks start and the Power Rangers rise.

-  
  
Bella's pretty sure that it isn't supposed to be this obvious who the Power Rangers are, and maybe it's not that obvious to everyone. Maybe it's just that she knows secret identities, knows how people disguise themselves to hide super powers and horrible secrets. She is far too familiar with the ways superhumans pretend to be normal humans.

Or maybe it's the fact that there are five people who work at the museum down the street from the cafe Bella works at who all hang out together and always wear colors that coordinate directly with the Power Rangers' uniforms. After a few months- at about the same time the Gold Ranger shows up- the museum gains a six employee and the group of friends suddenly have a guy in a long brown and gold coat hanging around them.

So maybe it might be that she's unusually perceptive because of what she's been through, or maybe it's just that the Power Rangers have no idea what the word 'subtle' means. 

-

There is something very wrong, and it’s not just that there are monsters across the street from Bella’s cafe and there are people running about. No, it’s that when the Rangers run by, as they always do, it’s only two of them charging into battle, a disturbing lack of Gold, Red, Pink, and Black by their side.

It’s wrong, and someone needs to fix it.

The decision is a split-second one, based on a whole host of feelings that Bella’s not sure she wants to name. She wants to feel alive again, and maybe a little dead too. She wants to save people, help them in the complete opposite way that Edward hurt her.

She chucks her coffee into a trash can and runs the opposite way of all the screaming people, charging into a battle that shouldn’t be hers but is.

-

She reaches the Blue and Green Rangers, who are doing pretty well but are obviously not winning, and she uses that self-defense training (thanks Lily) to launch herself into battle. 

She's pretty untrained, has no superhuman abilities like the Rangers do, but she fights with the desperation of a wild animal, every inch the mad human the vampires called her. She manages to beat off three monsters on her own, and then something flies up from the pavement and hits her wrist.

The world goes silver, the sky crackling with electricity, and suddenly she hears the roar of a Titanosaurus thundering through her ears. She opens her eyes- but they were open before, weren't they- and finds the world sharper, clearer, in a way it hasn't been since before Edward.

She looks down to find a silver stone in her hand. It's glowing brighter than Edward's skin ever sparkled, filling her with some sweet feeling incomparable to anything she's never felt before.

Bella looks at the Blue Ranger on the ground next to her. “Bella Swan,” she says, offering him a hand.

“Koda,” the Blue Ranger says, and it's a boy's voice.

She offers him a small smile. "Let's take care of these monsters," she says, and Koda nods. Then they charge into battle.

-

The Blue Ranger and Green Rangers DeMorph as soon as the battle is over, and Bella is faced with two of the boys she suspected were Power Rangers- the man who always wears blue ripped tank tops, and the guy who always wears green polo shirts and gray cardigans.

"We need to head back to the base and talk to Ms. Morgan," the Green Ranger says.

"Bring Bella with us?" Koda asks, and the Green Ranger nods.

"She bonded with the Silver Energem," the Green Ranger says. He looks at her with dull eyes. "Come with us, if you don't mind." He looks to Koda. "We've gotta talk to Ms. Morgan, see if she has any idea what we can to do to help everyone."

The walk over to the museum- and into the base, they have a  _base_ full of tech that seems like something out of the dime-store sci-fi novels Bella read as a kid before she got into Gothic literature- is pretty quick and silent. Both Koda and the Green Ranger (who still hasn't introduced himself yet) don't say much at all, and some might interpret that as rude. Bella understands silence, though, and she doesn't begrudge them their thoughts. She has spent a lot of the last year in quiet, trying to figure things out. Whatever they're going through, whatever they're trying to work out, silence makes sense.

She's gotta admit, though- slipping down the slide into the base brings a smile to her lips. There's something almost childishly exciting about a slide that leads into a high-tech, secret base.

"Who's this?" A woman's voice asks, and a moment later a beautiful woman with glasses and a brunette ponytail emerges from a truer entrance. Bella takes a moment to look at her. This isn't one of the people that Bella thinks is a Ranger, and she seems a little bit older than any of those Bella thinks may be Rangers. Where Koda and the Green Ranger seem to be no more than two years older than Bella, the woman has to be at least in her mid-20s.

"This is Bella," Koda introduces her to the woman, "She bond with Silver Energem." Koda looks at Bella. "Bella, this Kendall. She the museum director."

Kendall's eyes go wide. "Ms. Morgan," she corrects, and Bella makes the adjustment to the name in her brain. "And  _you_ bonded with the Silver Energem?"

Koda nods. "She ran out during battle and helped us take down the Vivex."

"Good thing Riley's been carrying the Energem around since he found it," Kendall says, and Bella takes a moment to put the pieces together. Riley- that must be the Green Ranger. She looks over, and he still looks upset. No, more specifically, he looks desperately worried.

“What’s wrong with him?” Bella asks.

“Monster curse his boyfriends,” Koda says, and Bella blinks. Boyfriend _s_? She might have thought it Koda’s odd way of speaking, but the lack of protest from the Green Ranger seems to indicate that he hasn’t misspoken.

The woman in glasses takes pity on her. “It’s a long story,” she says, “But the quick of it is Riley’s dating the Gold and Black Rangers.”

“They may not be that for much longer,” the strange alien-looking creature says, and Green- Riley, she thinks his name is- flinches. “You must find a way to restore the bonds. The team cannot survive with just a Green, a Blue, and a Silver.”

“What bonds, and how do we fix them?” Bella asks. She’s not shocked that whatever’s going on is happening, but she does want to know what exactly she’s gotten herself into.

“Their relationship bonds,” Riley finally speaks up to explain. “Mostly friendship bonds, but between Chase, Ivan, and I, our relationship has been dissolved. Same with the Red and Pink Rangers- Tyler and Shelby.”

Bella immediately pictures the other people she often sees hanging around Riley and Koda- the girl in pink, the man in the long coat, the guy in the baseball cap with the skateboard, and the guy in the red hoodie. It's pretty obvious which ones are which Rangers.

“Well, Rangers, I may have an idea how to fix things," Ms. Morgan says, and Riley's eyebrow shoots up.

"Really?" he asks, and Ms. Morgan nods with a smile. She holds up a couple of tubes that have dinos patterned on the sides. "I think I've managed to reverse some of the splitting of the relationship bonds by extrapolating the energy differences between your unaffected Energems and the ones that the other Rangers left behind." Bella blinks. There's something pretty damn impressive about what Ms. Morgan just said.

Then Ms. Morgan's gaze slides to a screen next to her and her eyes go wide with concern. Riley's expression shifts even further into worry, his features going pinched. "What's the matter?"

"They're at the bus stop," Ms. Morgan says. "Let's get in the van, I'll finish the along the way."

Riley grabs Ms. Morgan's tools and practically goes running. Bella shrugs and follows along, feeling some of his urgency within her.

-

While in the van, racing to the bus stop, Bella pulls up her hair into a ponytail. She’s always felt stronger, less like Edward’s-Bella, when her hair is up and away from her face.

Kendall- Ms. Morgan- whatever the woman wants to be called hands her over a small tube the size of a gluestick. “This is your morpher,” she says, “It’ll use the power of your Energem to turn you into your full Ranger form.”

Bella looks at it, at the power that such a small little thing could give her, and for a moment she doesn't take it. She has spent the past year getting over her desire for supernatural power, for anything that could change her body into something beyond its normal state. The idea that being a Power Ranger could turn her into something superhuman, something unnatural like Edward- she hates it.

Then she remembers how it felt to be Morphed. Vampire venom had felt cold in her veins, making her feel nothing but weak and hopeless; the Power was a warm caress, making her feel empowered. She had known strength, and it had felt lightyears beyond anything she'd dreamed that vampiric perfection could give her.

"The Silver Ranger, I'm guessing?" Bella asks, and Kendall gives her a small smile and nod.

"Yeah. We're still missing the Purple, Aqua, and Graphite Energems, but the Silver Energem is yours."

Bella takes the Morpher in her hand. "Then I'm ready."

- 

The moment the spell breaks at the bus stop, two of the guys- the one with the skateboard and the one with the long, overdramatic coat, run to Riley, apologies overflowing from their lips. Bella can see the way the tension sloughs from Riley’s shoulders, how he smiles and presses kisses to both their cheeks in relief.

Bella freezes for just a moment. That’s something Edward never did, no matter how much he hurt her- apologize. He never admitted his own fault in a situation, always just blamed him for his bad urges and the things he did to hurt her.

Then everyone turns to her, and she swallows.

“Who is the Lady with you all?” Riley’s tall boyfriend asks, and Bella blinks at his formal way of speaking. It almost reminds her of Carlisle, who sometimes slipped into language from a time far before and far away from her own.

“That is Bella Swan, our new Silver Ranger,” Riley says, all smiles now that his boyfriends are back.

“Welcome to the team,” Riley’s other boyfriend says, “Sorry we were kind of, well, bellends when you first became a Ranger. Chase Randall, Black Ranger, at your service.”

“And Sir Ivan of Zandar, Gold Ranger, Lady Bella,” the other boyfriend says.

Bella almost smiles. They seem so kind, so welcoming- but so did Edward. He'd seemed like the prince she'd always dreamed of as a child. (She'd thought that Edward would be her knight in shining armor, and he'd ended up being the monster locking her in the tower.)

And then the monster shows up, and there’s no more time to talk. Instead, they all have to fight these monsters.

The other Rangers move into fighting stances so naturally, as if they've been doing this for months- and they have been. They shout their Morphing calls and Morph into their Ranger forms, raising their weapons to face the monsters.

Bella holds up her Morpher and, following a beat behind the rest of the team, Morphs for the first time. The words "Dinosaur might, ready to fight" should sound silly, but they flow off of her tongue just as smoothly as her armor encases her body. She looks down and finds a weapon in her hands that she could only describe as a blaster. She's never used somethign this high-tech before, but she supposes it can't be too different from her dad's guns.

She takes a deep breath and charges into battle after the rest of the Rangers.

During the battle, she catches glimpses of Rangers fighting the monsters. Green, Gold, and Black are fighting as a team, taking down one of the main monsters and all of their minions, while Red and Pink are fighting together as well. Bella ends up next to Koda, taking down another of the main monsters.

She can't describe how  _right_ it feels to have the Power, to wield it under her aching fingertips.

-

After the battle they end up back in that base, and now that there is enough of a team to keep it from feeling empty.

Ivan, Riley, and Chase sit down on one side of a table, Riley in the middle of the bench with their legs pressed up against each others’. Bella can't help but stare at how comfortable they move together, the way they move without worry of each others' reactions.

Tyler and Shelby lean against a counter, while Koda sits down on a rock that Bella is nearly certain isn't meant to be sat on.

Then Ms. Morgan starts explaining.

“Ivan’s a knight that was captured by Fury, one of the monsters we’re fighting, and held captive for 800 years.”

“And Koda’s a caveman,” the guy in the red hoodie- Tyler, Bella expects- adds, and they're obviously expecting some expression of surprise but Bella's not providing that.

“Okay,” Bella says, and Riley blinks.

“You’re just going to accept that?”

“I’ve seen a lot of stuff before,” she says, “Trust me.”

Tyler, Chase, Riley look a bit surprised in her, but Shelby, Koda, and Ivan just accept it.

“One question, though,” she asks.

“Yes, Lady Bella?” Ivan offers.

“This whole color-coordinated thing you have going on- I only have flannels and jeans neither of which are really conducive to Silver. Is there anyway I can wear what I want instead of having to find something silver everyday?”

Shelby laughs. “I’m _definitely_ gonna like having you on the team.”

Bella smiles at Shelby. Besides Angela, she doesn't really have any female friends. She kind of remembers the first time she met the Cullens, the way Rosalie looked at her with an expression of utter disgust and contempt on her face. She remembers feeling like an outsider, like she was a bug intruding on the Cullens' pristine. Shelby doesn't look at her like that- instead, Shelby just smiles and welcomes her in.

Bella could get used to this.

“But now that we have that out of the way,” Chase says, “It _is_ Riley's birthday. Bella, you want to hang out and eat some cake?"

Bella blinks at the surprise invitation but nods, and she finds Kendall and Shelby smiling at her as everyone else starts pulling presents out from behind tables and grabbing food for a party. 

(This is a birthday party that won't end with one of them at her throat, trying to suck out her blood.)

Bella leans back in her seat and watches. She would help, but she's new here. She's not sure she feels comfortable intruding on helping set up a party that was obviously planned far before she got here.

They're obviously already friends. They work together well, smile like a family.

Then again, she knows that Ivan was a later addition to the team as well, and he's integrated pretty well. Maybe it won't be too hard. 

Tyler brings out the cake, "18" candle lit on top, and holds it out to Riley as everyone- including Bella- begins to sing. Riley grins at everyone as the song winds down and he blows the candles out.

Bella watches that fire, gaze lingering on the one thing that could have destroyed the Cullens for good.

These people don’t treat her like she’s fragile, like because she’s a human she must be coddled and protected. Rather, they expect her to be strong _because_ of said humanity, to be able to not only defend herself but to be a hero.

And Bella loves it. She is so fucking tired of being treated like a plucked flower, a fragile vase that will collapse under the slightest jostling. She is tired of being the lamb being devoured by the lion.

She is not the cowering prey, facing the perfect, immortal predator. She can use the Power to save other people from their monsters, turn her humanity into something beyond the monster Edward made her want to be.

Let the monsters attack. They will have to face her bitter, festering anger. They will have to face her humanity given the teeth of a Power Rangers' sword. 

Shelby holds up a piece of cake. "You want some, Bella?"

Bella smiles, nods, and rises from her seat. She is ready to join this team.

-

Bella returns home that night to find their apartment looking the same as it always has, despite the massive change to her life. She almost can't believe it, but then again she knows how little her dad's house changed from pre-Edward to during-Edward to post-Edward.

“Long day at work?” Angela asks, and Bella just has to let out a laugh.

“You could definitely say that,” she says.

"You want to talk about it?" Angela asks, offering up a Mountain Dew, and Bella smiles at the bright green liquid- about as far from blood red as you can get.

(Well, except Silver might be farther away. Maybe she  _will_  start wearing her Ranger a color a bit more, maybe pick up some thrift store jewelry or a belt to start wearing with her plaids and tank tops and jeans. Maybe even pick up a cross necklace. Can't hurt, right?)

"I guess I can share a little bit," Bella says, taking the offered Mountain Dew, and Angela grins at her.

Bella can definitely get used to this.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone wants more, I have a lot drafted and plenty of ideas for Bella bonding with her team and going to therapy and learning to accept herself and fighting monsters and gaining a family and her falling in love with a woman. More chapters will be added if anyone expresses interest.


End file.
